Your friend and aunt are both somewhat wrong. T-14s are generally national and can place anywhere if you have the requisite ties (and grades). Therefore, location of the school with regards to placement doesn't matter for these schools. If you can only get into schools that feed into shitlaw, it helps a lot by going to a local school, although it seems some of these firms are recruiting more from T-14s who have the ties and who get locked out of OCI.

Your Aunt is living in the past. Once upon a time, where you went to law school was of relatively little importance. My (Philadelphia-based) father has partners who went to Louisville and Arkansas. These days, Louisville and Arkansas grads are lucky to get jobs in their home markets, much less halfway across the country.